Steven on Safari

By Steven Raichlen

Steven on Safari

As the sun rose over Kruger National Park in South Africa, Steven was hard at work stalking recipes for Planet Barbecue. Not that you’d eat hippo (although Steven met people who had–it’s supposed to be very gamey). But while on safari, Steven did have a chance to try impala, spring bock, warthog, and other bush beasts–all grilled over charcoal.

The place was Singita Lebambo–a fabulously luxurious game lodge, where giraffes and zebras prowl the surrounding landscape.

The pay dirt moment of the trip for Steven–gastronomically speaking–was a bush dinner staged by Singita chef and braai fanatic Nico Pretorious. There was grilled haunch of spring bock, ostrich sosaties (as shish kebabs are called in these parts), and all manner of steaks and chops. The braai barbecue was grilled over charcoal under the open sky–exactly as it must have been a half million years ago, when our homo erectus ancestors invented the art of live fire cooking under these very African skies.

The coiled meat to the left is boerwors–South Africa’s famous farmer’s sausage–a coarsely ground, robustly spiced sausage, in this case made with spring bock.

Here’s a shish kebab of a different sort, a ostrich skewer called sosatie.